Tag Archives: Islamic extremism

Kyrgyz President arranges anti-extremist posters

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that he arranged the financing of several posters across Bishkek designed to warn against the spread of more extreme foreign forms of Islam in Kyrgyzstan. Mr Atambayev was questioned on the posters during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He said that even minor changes in a country’s tradition, such as clothing or words, can foster radicalisation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kyrgyz President talks about Islamic extremism recruitment techniques

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Basking in the reflected glory of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first ever trip to Central Asia, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev seems to have seized his moment to boast of his country’s commitment — and his own personal efforts — in combating Islamic extremism.

During a 30-minute joint press conference with Ms Merkel, Mr Atambayev said he had ordered his office to pay for posters campaigning against Islamic extremism across Bishkek.

With the rise of the extremist group IS, Central Asian leaders have emphasised the role of external pressure on the radicalisation of their citizens and how their security forces respond to it.

These strategies have served the governments’ objectives of cracking down on opposition forces, shifting blame and establishing a constant ‘emergency mode’.

Some governments, like Turkmenistan, and to a lesser extent Uzbekistan, outright deny any radical Islamic presence within their borders. Even those countries that do, tend to blame foreign zealots for wiping up extremist sentiment.

Now, it seems, Mr Atambayev has changed the tone.

His decision to allocate public funds to posters that showed a correlation between the contamination of Kyrgyz traditional folklore and Islamic extremism is a bold one. The posters, plastered across motorways around the capital, showed a group of smiling girls in traditional white Kyrgyz dresses transitioning to a picture of a subjugated group of women wearing black hijabs that are alien to Central Asian cultures.

At the press conference, Mr Atambayev said that he supported the posters and wished there would be more across the city.

“[This] is where it all starts. We start with the adoption of foreign clothing, foreign words, and we end up with people who cut heads off,” Mr Atambayev said.

This is one of the first admissions from a Central Asian leader that radicalisation could be homegrown, albeit fuelled by adopting foreign custom.

It is still unclear whether Mr Atambayev was consciously trying to blaze a new trail in the fight against radical Islam or he was just trying to promote Kyrgyz people as traditionally peaceful.

Regardless, standing next to Ms Merkel he broke new ground in the radical Islam conversation in Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Georgian IS commander gets killed

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Abu Omar Al-Shishani, a Georgian- born IS commander, was reported dead, according to IS-linked news outlets. Known as ‘Omar the Chechen’, Al-Shishani reportedly died in combat in Mosul, in northern Iraq. A native of Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, Al-Shishani had served as the extremist group’s de facto minister of war.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kazakh court jails IS group

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Aktobe, northern Kazakhstan, sentenced 12 people who had allegedly tried to join the ranks of the extremist IS group in February. The suspects received sentences of between 6 and 8 years in prison. The court said the group had tried to travel to Syria to join an IS training camp. Kazakhstan’s government has repeatedly emphasised its efforts towards combating Islamic extremism.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kyrgyz and Tajiks were part of airport attack, says Erdogan

BISHKEK, JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tajiks and Kyrgyz were part of the group that planned an attack on Istanbul airport last week, again highlighting the Central Asian link to radical Islam.

Turkish security forces have arrested around 30 people, including Kyrgyz and Tajiks, and accused them of plotting the attack that killed at least 44 people and wounded over 200 on June 28.

Mr Erdogan accused the IS radical group of the attack.

“We have arrested 30 people related to the terrorist attack. We are dealing with natives of Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” Mr Erdogan said.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan said they would investigate Mr Erdogan’s accusations.

The Istanbul attack has highlighted Central Asia as a growing recruitment centre for Islamic extremists. It is unclear whether Central Asians become radicalised in their own country or in Russia, but their growing presence in Syria’s IS training camps is undisputed.

In an effort to crush radicalism, Central Asian governments have cracked down on Islamic opposition, including ordinary, peaceful and pious Muslims, often enflaming tension.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Turkey says two Kyrgyz and Uzbek citizens attacked Istanbul airport

BISHKEK, JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces said that two of the three attackers at Istanbul’s international airport on Tuesday were from Central Asia, highlighting Islamic extremist recruitment in the region.

At least 44 people died and another 240 people were injured when the three attackers opened fire with machine guns outside the terminal building and then blew themselves up. Nobody has claimed responsibility, although the radical IS group is the main suspect.

The Turkish government has now said one of the attackers was from the North Caucasus and the others were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan has not commented; Kyrgyzstan initially denied a connection.

But analysts said that if two of the attackers were proved to be from Central Asia, it would show the increasingly effective recruitment network IS has developed in the region.

Anna Matveeva of King’s College London said Central Asia had become one of IS’s main recruitment pools because of its various social problems and the marginalisation of pious Muslims.

“Radicalisation and violence is definitely on the rise in Central Asia,” she said. “I think this phenomenon is growing.”

Central Asian governments are worried about the rise in IS recruitment in the area.

In 2015, a senior Tajik police commander defected to IS. Last month, the Kazakh government blamed an attack in Aktobe, in the northwest of the country, on a group which had links with Syria.

Analysts have said part of the problem is that security forces in Central Asia don’t coordinate effectively.

Kate Mallinson, a Central Asia analyst at London-based GPW, said if proved that two of the Istanbul attackers were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan there was likely to be a reaction by the security forces.

“The tragic attack in Istanbul will give the Central Asian governments further carte blanche in their application of punitive measures against Islamic movements in the Central Asian region,” she said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Kazakh police arrests several men

JUNE 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan said they had arrested several men in two villages near Karaganda in the centre of the country as they prepared explosives for a terror attack. Kazakhstan’s security forces have been on high alert since a series of attacks in Aktobe at the start of June killed around two dozen people. Officials linked the attack to radical Islamists.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Ukraine security forces arrest two Tajik men

JUNE 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Security forces in Ukraine arrested two Tajik men at Kharkiv airport for allegedly being members of the radical IS group, media reported. According to reports, the men were returning to Tajikistan from Syria via Turkey and Ukraine. They planned to target various sites with bombs. Governments in Central Asia are concerned about growing IS influence.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Two Kyrgyzstani die in Istanbul attack

JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two of the 44 people who died in an attack on Istanbul airport by three suspected Islamic extremists were from Kyrgyzstan, media reported. Passengers for a flight to Bishkek were checking in when the three attackers opened fire on a terminal building and then detonated suicide bombs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Kazakhstan links Aktobe attacks to Syrian imam

ALMATY, JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s interior minister, Kalmukhanbet Kassymov, said attacks earlier this month in Aktobe by two dozen armed men had been ordered from Syria, the strongest suggestion yet that the government linked the violence to the extremist group ISIS.

His comments appeared to clear up an inconsistency in the Kazakh authorities’ explanation on the motives behind the attacks.

After the initial attack on June 5 on two shops and a police outpost in Aktobe, the authorities had alluded to a link with ISIS but a few days later President Nursultan Nazarbayev then suggested they had been part of an attempted colour revolution sponsored by the West. Coloured revolution means, in the FSU, a pro-Western, foreign-funded movement.

Now, though, the government line appears settled.

Mr Kassymov said that up to 45 men had gathered in an apartment before the first attack.

“When they all gathered in an apartment, they listened to an address from a so-called imam, apparently from Syria, who said that they needed to carry out a sacred jihad,” Russian media quoted him as saying. “The investigation will prove this.”

He also said that the last few gunmen who had escaped the shoot- out on June 5 had now been captured or killed. He said that, in total, 18 gunmen had been killed and nine arrested.

Three security officers and four civilians were also killed in the attacks, in the most serious in Kazakhstan’s 25 years of independence.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)